underwater. I tell her
this: how the green blades
stir is only half
of my answer.

Brandon Courtney was born and raised in Iowa, served four years in the United States Navy (Operation Enduring Freedom), and is a graduate of the MFA program at Hollins University. His poetry is forthcoming or appears in Best New Poets (’09), The Journal, 32 Poems, and Boston Review, among many others. His book, The Grief Muscles, is forthcoming from Sheep Meadow Press. Thrush Press will published his chapbook, Improvised Devices. He is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.